The 992-gen Porsche 911 Turbo S didn’t evolve a lot in terms of design. It never does, really. For the most part the 911 has gone through minor changes since it was introduced some 70 years ago. And, while that may have held true for the new 911 Turbo S, there’s something that did evolve drastically, and that’s its overall performance. In fact, without moving to a bigger engine or going hybrid, Porsche managed to give the new Turbo S the largest increase in power its ever seen – this is how Porsche did it and why.

How Did Porsche Make the 911 Turbo S So Powerful?

The 2021 Porsche 911 Turbo S has climbed from an already-impressive 580 horsepower and 553 pound-feet of torque to an unexpected and earth-shattering 640 horsepower and 590 pound-feet of torque. That’s an improvement of 60 horsepower and 37 pound-feet of torque over its predecessor. And, that raises two serious questions: How did Porsche Do it? And why did Porsche do it?

The massive increase in power doesn’t come courtesy of a new engine or the introduction of some radical new hybrid powertrain (an award for the latter should be awarded to Koenigsegg for the new Gemera, though.) In fact, the new 992-gen 911 Turbo sports the same 3.8-liter engine found in the last-gen model. Sure, there are other things at play here, like tweaked fuel delivery and adjustments to time, but those two things are the primary catalysts for such a dramatic power increase.

But why did Porsche make the 911 Turbo S so powerful? It does set very high expectations for the next model, especially considering a hybrid or electric 911 is still some 6-10 years away at best. Well, the Chief Engineer of the Porsche 911, Dr. Frank-Steffen Walliser, answered that very question in an interview with Road & Track.

According to him, the whole idea behind such a massive power increase was for the driver. To be more specific, he wanted the driver to feel it:

He also made another point clear, and that is that it’s more about the torque that you can feel than it is the horsepower:

So outside of feeling for the driver, what does this massive improvement represent for the rest of the world? Well, the new 911 Turbo S can sprint to 60 mph in just 2.7 seconds – an improvement of 0.2-seconds over the last-gen model. So, if you were wondering what an extra 60 horsepower and 40 pound-feet could do, that’s exactly it – it really does make a different on several fronts.